Stranger Highways
by KievaLynn
Summary: Semi Self-Insert: The nightmare was always the same: He failed to save her. But was it just a dream, or a memory? And if he failed and she died, how can she be here now? Aeris/O.C. Standard Disclaimer, I don't own any of this.


Stranger Highways

Call me Christian. It's not my real name, but I need to call myself by something in this tale, and you're not getting the real thing. I've got the safety and privacy of myself and my loved ones to consider, after all. At any rate, Christian is appropriate to me in a variety of ways, and a name I've always liked, so it'll do for this purpose. Before you can ask, 'this purpose' is recording the true story of events that happened in my life not too long ago, of the miracle which saved my soul from an eternity of sadness and desolation.

While I suppose I could just dive right in to the story itself, that would be settling for too little. In order for you to truly understand the magnitude of these events on my life, you need a little history. I've always tried to be a hopeful and faithful person, but life hasn't been very helpful to me in that regard. I grew up with a father who beat my mother and didn't give the slightest damn that I even existed. So my fondest wish in life was always to have a chance to be the husband and father that he wasn't. Instead, I never managed to find a single woman who wanted the slightest thing to do with me.

Alone, I looked for distractions and found them in books, in movies, in games. In particular, I took a liking to the entire Final Fantasy series, and especially the seventh game in that series. I spent a lot of years in a borderline obsession with Aeris. She just seemed so much like the kind of person I wished I could actually meet. In total honesty, I think I may have been just a little insane at the worst points of this period of my life, but it didn't matter to me. The way I saw it, a little insanity might be the best inoculation against a greater insanity, in the same way that catching the mild illness called cowpox protects you from the potentially fatal smallpox.

Then the dreams started, and with them my story. At first, the dream only came once a week. Then twice, three times… After four months I was having the dream every time I tried to sleep. It was always the same: In the dream, I was in the game world, at the Forgotten Capitol, with the Avalanche team. Though I didn't actually dream of anything that came prior to this, I had, in the dream, memories of travelling with them since Midgar. Aeris was there, of course, on her knees praying to summon Holy. In the dream memories, we were together. An item. She knew the truth. She was counting on me to save her.

I failed. Every single time, the exact same sequence of events. Sephiroth comes. I try to stop him. I manage to throw off his aim, but it's not enough. He succeeds, and she's dying in my arms. And he's laughing. He's laughing, and he won't stop laughing, and I wake up with a scream stuck in my throat and tears running down my face.

I suppose I should have sought professional help. But like most people suffering mental or psychological problems, I just couldn't make myself go. As you might expect, this had a negative effect on my attitude. My temper was short, and I grew ever more easily irritated. I was lucky to have a boss who respected my work enough to give me some slack, in retrospect I should have lost my job twenty times over in those four months, especially near the end when the dream was coming every day. I felt like something was trying to destroy me. As it turns out, I wasn't too far off the mark.

Anyway, I awoke at seven one evening from the worst day yet. Three repetitions of the dream. I showered but didn't feel like shaving, and picked at an unhealthy meal before leaving for my night's work. As I backed out of my garage, I became aware of a strange flickering of light in the sky. Looking up through the windshield, I saw that the sky was filled with a massive aurora. Now, I had seen auroras in the skies north of my home before, but I live far enough south that it was extremely rare and faint, and always far off to the north. This was bright, vibrant, and covered the heavens from north to south. I watched in awe for several minutes, then drove to my workplace, a large department store.

At ten o clock, our managers held the usual meeting, letting everyone know what areas of the store they needed to stock, and released us to get started. On my way to the front of the building, I saw her. Standing in the electronics department, looking at something on a shelf, was a young woman who was the spitting image of Aeris as she had appeared in my dreams. She was the right height, the right build, her dress was even a pale pink, though her long hair wasn't braided. She looked up in my direction and smiled, causing my heart to skip a beat at the sight of her bright green eyes.

I smiled and quickly continued on my way. As I said, I may have been insane at times, but it was only a slight insanity, so it's not like I thought then that this could have really been a fictional character. If anything, I was annoyed at the reminder of the dream.

I spent the next three hours working steadily in my assigned area. Several times the lights flickered, and I asked the manager about this when she came by checking up on everyone. "Something to do with that strange aurora." She answered. "I guess there's some kind of solar storm or something." This made sense, and I didn't give it another mind until a flicker was accompanied by a slight shuddering of the ground under my feet. No way that was any solar storm.

About that time, as I was busy trying to fit a large bag of dog food into a shelf too small for it, I heard a voice from behind me. It was only a single word, "Hi," but I knew the voice and needed a moment before turning around. She was standing there. Looking me straight in the eyes with those incredible eyes of her own, eyes that seemed to see right through me, while offering no resistance to being looked through themselves, nothing hidden or covered up.

"Erm… Hi… Can I help you with something?" I asked nervously.

She giggled lightly. "No. Actually, I was just hoping to talk. It's really too bad you've got to be inside tonight. The aurora is still stunning out there."

"Yeah. When I left home to drive in, I almost lost track of time watching it."

The lights flickered again, and another rumble passed through the ground. "Doesn't seem like something an aurora would cause does it?" she asked.

"No." I paused for a moment, and decided to try and put my mind at rest. I said "You know, you really remind me of someone. If you don't mind my asking, what's your name?"

She answered "Why do you ask the question when you already know the answer?"

"I do?" I replied dumbly.

"Of course you do Christian." Now I was dumbfounded. I wasn't wearing a name badge so how did this person know my name?

"I'm afraid you have me at a loss…" I started to say.

"I'm afraid of that too. But no matter, we'll work our way through it."

"Look," I said, "I'm trying to be polite and patient, but I've not been sleeping well lately and I'm very tired…"

"I know. Trust me when I say that one way or another, the nightmares end tonight."

I stared at her for a long moment. "Who are you?"

"You know." She insisted. "Your memory is lacking for some reason, but you know." I thought the girl was finished and was about to say something cutting when she continued "You need to believe. It's vitally important that you believe…"

"Believe what? What is it that you want me to believe?"

"You know." She repeated. I let out an exasperated groan. "I'm sorry." She said. "I swear to you, I swear on everything good and right in the world, that I don't want to be inscrutable. Not this time anyway. I want to just tell you. But I can't. I can be here. I can lead you in the right direction with bits and pieces. But in the end you need to accept it yourself, you need to believe."

Another flicker in the lights. The worst one yet. The ground shook and outside a rumble of thunder broke the mid-night silence. "Why?" I asked. "Why is that detail so important?"

"The gate is open." She said. "There's not much time left… You need to believe. The gate is open and he's coming through."

"He who?"

"You know. Sorry."

The lights went out entirely this time, for nearly twenty seconds. Thunder rolled. When the power came back on, it was only a matter of seconds before a fellow employee came on the P.A. system, shouting for management to come to the unloading dock immediately. He sounded panicked and frightened. Curious as to what might have happened, I started in that direction. The mysterious girl followed, and to my surprise showed no hesitation about ignoring the 'employees only' sign on the backroom door. She came right on through by my side.

In the backroom, I rounded a corner and saw the reason for the urgent call for a manager, not that any manager could have done anything about it. Directly in front of the center dock door, centered about five feet off the ground, was a swirling blue vortex eight feet in diameter.

"What in the world is that?" I whispered.

"The Gate of Worlds." The girl answered. "As I said, the gate is open, and he's coming through…" She looked me directly in the eyes again. "Christian, listen to me. There's not much time left. You need to believe…"

"Believe WHAT?" I demanded.

"You need to believe that I really am who you know I am."

I didn't know how to answer that. I felt like denying the possibility was the only way to hold onto my sanity. She continued to speak softly but insistently, perhaps knowing the turmoil I was experiencing. She spoke of things that I remembered as soon as I heard them. Why had I forgotten? And if the dream was a memory, how could she be standing there, alive and well, when I knew how the dream always ended?

So difficult was the situation for me that I would probably still be standing there waffling back and forth if circumstances hadn't forced the issue for me. From out of the swirling blue vortex there emerged a brilliantly bright pinpoint of green light, which moved directly towards the girl and began to rapidly expand into a fog of green light that was burning everything it touched. A tiny part of my mind whispered "Ultima."

Seeing no time to waste, I shouted for the girl to look out, and dived headlong towards her, pushing the both of us out of the way just in time. We fell to the ground, and behind me the green fog passed and began to diffuse. I became aware, dimly, of other people shouting and yelling in fear and confusion.

I looked down at the girl. "Are you okay?"

Smiling, she said "I knew you believed in me."

This response seemed out of place, until I realized what had happened. When I saw the attack coming and yelled for her to run, I had called her by name. I had called her 'Aeris.'

No longer lying to myself but still dumbfounded, I asked "How is this possible? And please don't tell me I already know…"

"Don't worry… I only had to do that until you were able to believe. I'll tell you everything, or at least as much of it as I know. We've got a bigger concern first, though."

I looked over towards the portal. Aeris had said someone was coming through. She said I knew who it was. I looked back down to her. Dared to say it. "Sephiroth?"

"Yes. I don't know how, but he's figured out I'm still alive. He's coming for the both of us."

I stood, helped Aeris to her feet. "Okay… So if this is an open door, is there some way to close it up?"

"I can close the gate." Aeris answered. "Oyarsa Minerva showed me how. But, closing a gate you've opened yourself, or one left open and abandoned, is easy. Taking a gate that someone else opened and still wants open and forcing it closed is much harder. I doubt even a full-blooded Cetra could do it alone. I need your help."

"Tell me what you need me to do."

She held out her left hand, and I took it in my right. "Just hold on, and believe." She said, "I'll do the rest."

Standing side by side, hand in hand, we faced the portal. Aeris closed her eyes and there was an unmistakable look of concentration on her face. I noticed a green glow and, looking closer, saw what I recognized as a green materia crystal in her other hand. I began to feel weak, and whatever Aeris was doing to close the portal, it was taking a strain on her as well.

"Have faith." She whispered. "Believe… We're almost there, just a little more…"

Movement in the portal. A long, silvery, shining object began to emerge. I needed a moment to recognize it for what it was: The tip of a sword. A very large sword. As more and more of the blade slowly came into view, the urge to despair that all was lost piled down on my head like a crushing weight.

Aeris didn't say anything more, but somehow I knew that giving in to those feelings would be the death of us. She said I needed to believe. She insisted upon it, and I knew that without that faith to draw upon, there wouldn't be enough power to slam the door shut. So I fought back against the despair, which was as simple as looking at her, seeing her standing by my side, alive and well.

Suddenly, a surge of green danced around us, as Aeris motioned her right hand towards the portal and exclaimed "Disrupt the portal close the gate; Spare this world from evil's hate!" The materia flashed and from it surged three swirling bands of golden light that entered the portal. In mere moments, the portal closed, slicing cleanly through the three feet of sword blade already here. The metal fell to the ground with a resounding clang.

She had did it. Or, we had did it as Aeris herself would insist. Wobbly from the exertion of casting such a powerful spell, she leaned on me for support. We took a few steps forward and stood over the broken blade. Finally I said "He's gonna be maaaaad…." Aeris laughed and I joined in. I realized that this was the first time I had actually laughed in months, and it felt better than I remembered.

After everything that had happened, I expected to be mobbed by coworkers who had seen what happened and wanted answers. In fact, it turned out that everyone had been so busy freaking out over everything else that was happening that they hadn't even noticed what Aeris and I did. No repercussions ever came from anyone else either, so I assume the electrical interference must have screwed up the security cameras facing the dock. In any case, I led Aeris to the front of the building and outdoors. We sat on a bench, and as she leaned over and placed her head on my shoulder she said "So… explanations?"

I looked up at the sky, where the auroras were fading. "That'd be nice." I said, "But if you're too tired I can wait."

Sitting up straighter, she said "I'm okay… But where to begin? I guess, begin with your nightmare. It's a memory of what really happened. You really were pulled into my world by some kind of force. Everything you remember, everything you saw, it all happened."

"But if that's true… Aeris, I saw you get stabbed, I held you in my arms when you were dying…"

"Not quite." She said. She unfastened a single button on the front of her dress, took my hand, and placed it against her stomach, under the dress. I felt the scar. "So far as I've pieced together," she said, "From my own knowledge and what the doctors have told me, this is what happened: When Sephiroth came for me, when he was diving down to attack, he was aiming directly for my heart, going for the sure, instant kill…"

Remembering how things went in the game, I knew this had to be right.

Aeris continued "But then you interfered. You tried to stop him, and, well… You didn't alter his trajectory enough to keep me from getting stabbed, you remember that. Then, while you were holding me, whatever force brought you to Gaia in the first place chose a really bad time to bring you back home, before you saw I wasn't dead."

"But you were still hurt…" I said.

"I don't remember how I got to the hospital. But I woke up there, and I was as surprised as you to find myself still alive. Apparently, when you tried to stop the attack you threw Sephiroth's aim off by about four inches. Not enough for him to miss me entirely, but it did mean that he missed my heart. In fact, call it luck, or fate, or divine intervention, but the spot where the sword went through was right in the middle of a narrow path where it missed everything vital. I still needed medical attention of course, it was way too bad of an injury for cure magic to fix, but…"

"But you survived. Aeris… I'm so sorry I didn't do better. I meant to keep you from being hurt at all and you were counting on me and I let you down and…" She cut me off before I could say more.

"Stop that. You saved me. You threw Sephiroth's aim off by four inches. That's incredible, considering how strong he is. That's all that matters." She leaned into me again, and I wrapped both arms around her. "God I've missed you." She said.

"I wish I could remember more clearly. How long has it been?"

"For me, about five months. I just got out of the hospital a few days ago. As for you, I think there's some kind of strange time variance going on. It's probably been a couple of years, at least, for you."

Something occurred to me. I asked "What's to keep Sephiroth from just re-opening the Gate? And, how did you get here?"

Aeris produced a materia crystal and explained "A gift from Oyarsa Minerva. A 'transit' materia. It's how I made the shift, and it's less intrusive, there's no side effects to it's use. As for Sephiroth, he shaved a sliver off of the Black Materia and combined it with a gravity materia to create the portal, which is also what caused the aurora and the earthquakes."

"Can he re-use it again? Can he still come here?"

"The one he already had should have been destroyed by the feedback of my closing the portal. He could make another of course, but he'd have to damage the Black Materia further by carving off another piece. I doubt he'd be willing to risk it, at least for now."

"That's good." I agreed. "So… Are you able to stay here or will you need to go back?"

"I can go back whenever, with this materia. But I don't have to and so long as you're here I don't intend to."

"Where do we go from here?" I wondered.

"I'm not sure yet. And I don't really care as long as we go there together."

And so there you have it. My life has changed drastically since that night, and all for the better. At long last, I'm not alone. And though having Aeris around certainly complicates my life, I wouldn't have it any other way. Of course, this tale isn't over yet. There's the whole Sephiroth problem to deal with, and the discovery that the Transit materia can also access other 'fictional' worlds. And the revelation that the nightmares had been caused by a greater threat trying to destroy us both. But those are other stories, to be told another day…

Author's Notes:

1: This story is named after and inspired by one of the best stories I've ever read, the novella 'Strange Highways' by Dean Koontz.

2: This has been a big experiment for me in three ways. This is:

A: My first self-insert type of story.

B: My first first-person viewpoint story.

C: My first single-chapter one-shot story.

3: Twice in the story, Aeris refers to Minerva as 'Oyarsa Minerva' instead of 'Goddess Minerva.' This is not random. I'm planning to tell the 'other stories' referred to at the end eventually, and when I do that detail will become important.


End file.
